When pollution checking of vehicles turns into a farce

Karun Lama

(The writer can be contacted at karunlamascholar@gmail.com)

Since the enactment of the new Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, each day we come across many stories about people being charged with hefty fines for failing to follow the rules. Now, each working day in the District Transport Offices is witness to long queues of vehicle users waiting there for updating the documents of their vehicles. A similar scene is witnessed in vehicle pollution testing centres as well.

A few days ago, I too visited a nearby vehicle pollution testing centre for updating the PUC (Pollution Under Control) certificate of my motorcycle. Meanwhile, standing in the queue, two men behind me started murmuring against the stringent rule of paying hefty fines. While one complained that the fines are too high, the other person reckoned the overall collection country-wide and roughly estimated it to be in hundreds of crores of rupees. Soon, more people joined the discussion as the queue advanced tediously. An elderly citizen standing before me burst out, “How on this Earth, with a PUC certificate, a motor vehicle can have its pollution under control?” Hearing him, a friend of mine – Nabajit — standing beside me, commented sarcastically, “Uncle, we needn’t worry! After paying the money, our vehicles will emit oxygen instead of carbon monoxide.” People standing nearby broke out in laughter, and the serious discussion calmed down. Well, the question asked by the uncle remained unanswered.

Actually, the process of procuring a PUC certificate was a bit interesting over there except for the trouble of standing in a long queue. One just needs to pay a sum of Rs 500 as fine at the District Transport Office if the validity of the document has expired. After that by producing the receipt, one can easily get a PUC certificate from a pollution testing center at a certain fee. No doubt the process seems absolutely fine. But there’s a serious thing to take a note of. In that centre, every vehicle owner was being given a PUC Certificate irrespective of the levels of carbon monoxide a vehicle was emitting. This is because no test was done with respect to the motor vehicles. That’s the point the uncle was trying to make! How is it, without undergoing the emission test, the motor vehicles are being certified as having their pollution under control? Well, it seems that it’s only a matter of money, which is to be paid as a fee or a fine, and that the emission is made under control… But only on papers!

If it works likewise, why is the PUC certificate at all required? Well, it is very necessary at the roadside if one doesn’t want to be penalized with a challan of Rs 1,000 by the traffic police. However, the quintessence of such a certificate becomes vague as the prime motive of controlling pollution is being compromised.

Well, I’m not much aware of the kind of procedure that is being followed in other parts of the country since the implementation of the new Act. But I’m sure after witnessing this in Dibrugarh, that there would be other places in the State, where the same thing might have been happening. Later at the end of the day, I phoned some of my friends, living in other parts of the State to know if the same thing prevailed over there. Well, it’s distressing that most of their answers were in the affirmative.

The majority of us don’t pay heed, even when such things occur in front of our eyes. Who doesn’t want to make good one’s escape through the easiest possible way if the process is itself flawed! After all, we are Indians! It’s a common thing, here, don’t we leave it so? However, that day, the question might not have only arisen in that uncle’s mind. It had arisen in my mind, too. And I’m sure every conscious citizen standing in the queue had the same question going over their mind. But we rarely speak up. In a democratic nation, the supreme power lies in its citizens. Hence, we need to speak up against the wrong happenings. Our transport authorities need to take necessary steps on this matter. On the other hand, the traffic authorities shall have to keep sharp eyes on the vehicles even if they have the PUC document.

The new Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act has already shaken the day-to-day lives of the motor vehicle users throughout the country. Nevertheless, the prime motive of bringing such laws must yield the change as envisaged. Moreover, it’s apparent that a huge sum of money has been collected as fines since the implementation of the Act, and that indeed might be hundreds of crores of rupees if the country-wide collection, till date, is summed up. The same money can be utilized in improving the transport sector, for instance – in repairing the dilapidated roads. And as far as pollution control is concerned, the collection made from the PUC fees and fines would be utilized to plant as many trees as possible beside the roads. However, we are fortunate that our cities have not reached the heights as Delhi, Kanpur, etc. where air pollution has become a serious menace.

Also Read: Road Traffic Offences To Come Under IPC With MV Act: Supreme Court